With the BTC rate nearing USD $16000/ bitcoin, hackers are making bitcoins mining sites as easy targets for minting money. Yesterday, NiceHash which allows people offer computing capacity for bitcoin miners to mine digital currencies was hacked and nearly $60 million worth Cryptocurrency was siphoned from the platform.
Note- NiceHash allows miners to work out byzantine mathematical equations to add cryptocurrency transactions to decentralized public ledgers called Blockchain.
When users of NiceHash highlighted the issue on Reddit and Twitter, officials from the said mining marketplace issued a twitter statement that their service was undergoing maintenance and will be offline for few hours.
Then after a couple of hours, the company turned up saying that it was still busy investigating the incident and were working to verify the precise number of BTC taken. Till then they said that the site will be down.
While NiceHash is unsure of the number of Bitcoins taken, some BTC enthusiasts pointed out to a nascent wallet which holds 4,736.42 bitcoins- equivalent to $68 million.
Andrej P. Skraba, the head of marketing, NiceHash has confirmed the news to Reuters that around 4,700 Bitcoins were stolen from the platform by hackers and the actual number is yet to be confirmed.
From past couple of months, due to a rise in ransomware attacks and some enthusiasm in the digital world, the rate of bitcoins against USD has surged up at an alarming rate. While economists say that the rise is like a bubble, some BTC enthusiasts say that its time for BTC owners to make profits.
The best example to prove that the situation is ripe for Bitcoin investors is the recent stardom of the Winklevoss Twins who became the World’s first bitcoin billionaires.
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who sued Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their idea of starting a social networking site, were awarded $65 million in a settlement suite in 2004.
The twins invested $11 million at USD $120 per bitcoin at that time. Now, as the BTC rate has surged up to $15,000 they have sold most of their crypto to become billionaires.
Wonder, whose next…..?
